porter house party maggie & liza @loverzhq
For more than a year, Maggie had kept a lid on the box in the back of her heart with any reminder of Liza in it. Careful to not press on the broken-hearted bits of herself that had been wrung out and left feeling betrayed. It was a concentrated effort made easy only by her ability to keep busy, to find work for herself, and throw all her time and energy into promoting a book that had been written when her life had a different weight to it. One that felt like hope and promise, love and the things she found herself wanting with a desperation that mocked her when it fell apart. You're too much, Magnolia. You hold on too tight. You ask too much. You love too much. It's exhausting. You're exhausting. Some variation of the sentiments over and over again. Rarely had she thought to consider that what she offered would not be enough.
Not enough was a different sort altogether, a fault in herself she did not know how to remedy, if she could. All the parts of her had been so well established, cemented into her during her girlhood when things were an opposing measure of whimsical day dreams and nightmarish realities. She and her heart were intrinsic. She could not dole it out in halves and did not know how to make it more. Make herself more so that she would be enough. In all her failings and endless tormenting thoughts, she had come to the conclusion that she should have realized it sooner; it had been something she was born into. The not-enough-ness and the too, too much-ness of all she was and all she could never be. She had tried both ways multiple times. Tried to adopt a version of herself that was less sensitive, more charming, less untrusting, more rebellious... it never did turn out well for her. Liza was just the most recent reminder of all the spectacular ways she did not measure up.
The self-pity was bitterness and latent anger tempered only by the most recent tragedy. A tragedy that directly impacted Liza. One that had her pulling the lid of the metaphorical box and sending a text after so many months of silence. That had been a test of how healed she was. It was fine, she told herself. It was okay. She was okay. But that was words; they were separated by miles and a screen. Seeing her now was a far cry from the different she'd been. An ache both familiar and new spread through her as quickly as turning on a light. For all the bitter fighting and painful heartbreak and what followed it Maggie would never have wished for this to happen to Amelia. For it to hurt Liza.
She would have gone in the opposite direction, but the sounds of someone getting sick loudly and the fact that she had been staring at her longer than politeness would allow moved her forward. Opened her mouth to say something, closed her lips when no sound followed, and frowned. "No one would have blamed you if you didn't come tonight," she decided on a moment later, tucking a braid behind her shoulder.